After the Vietnam War, countless soldiers suffered from PTSD. The trauma they saw, endured and witnessed forever changed and scarred their lives. Men, like Tim O'Brien, the author of the novel The Things They Carried, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and took years to regain their lives after returning home. In the excerpt from his novel, O'Brien shows the reader how the men endured this mind-altering experience in the jungles of Vietnam through the details of all the objects the men carry with them. The men in the Vietnam War didn't know why they were there fighting in Vietnam and what their purpose was there. The United States justified its involvement in the war by claiming that it was fighting communism and preventing communist North Vietnam from taking over the more democratic South Vietnam. This affected the soldiers because they did not know why they were there killing villagers and innocent civilians. They destroyed land and crops to fight the Viet Cong, and the effects of Agent Orange, the toxin used to destroy vegetation, are still prevalent today. A second reason the United States justified its involvement in the Vietnam War was to prevent the spread of communism throughout Asia. The United States came up with the domino theory and said that if Vietnam became a communist country, so would the surrounding countries and so on (Herring). This war on communism did not bring any solution because even today Vietnam is still a communist country; therefore, the soldiers do not feel that they fought for a real cause. No one received anything from the war that satisfied them. The men ended up returning home scared for life of violence and death… middle of paper… assistance needed to treat their PTSD. Works Cited Bremner, J. "Chronic PTSD in Vietnam Combat Veterans": Course of Illness and Substance Abuse." ProQuest. Np, nd Web. November 28, 2011. .Doyle-Portillo, Susann and Ellen Pastorino. What is psychology? Australia: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2006. Print.Herring, G. “The Cold War and Vietnam.” APA 6th Edition, nd Web. 28 November 2011. “National PTSD Center – What is PTSD?” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, NP, Jan. 1, 2007. Web. Nov. 30, 2011. .O'Brien. , Tim. The Things They Carried. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Writing.